


that's why they call him 'spooky'

by hellsteeth



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, flirting with some debating and maybe even some ghosts, if mulder had been alive during this era he would have been a parapsychologist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsteeth/pseuds/hellsteeth
Summary: The year is 1921 and Spiritualism is at its peak in the United States. Fox Mulder, amateur psychical researcher and reporter on all things paranormal, meets Dana Scully, staunch skeptic, at a seance.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	that's why they call him 'spooky'

“Come on Dana, I think this is the right place.” 

Missy’s grip on Dana’s hand was tight as she pulled her excitedly up to a large townhouse. It didn’t appear as if anyone was home, but her sister was undeterred and rapped on the front door.

“We’re here for the seance, we have an invitation.” Melissa stated, holding out the crisp stationary to the person who had opened the door. Dana sighed and glanced over her shoulder onto the empty street behind them, as if someone would hear what they were there for and laugh in their faces. She wouldn’t blame them if they did.

They were led into the parlor, which was lit only by a few candles. There was a small group, maybe ten people, speaking in hushed voices near the fireplace. Dana remained in the corner, eyes scanning the rest of the room while Melissa joined the others and began cheerfully introducing herself.

Was this where the main event would take place? No, she realized as she caught a glance through a doorway on the other side of the room. Inside was a large table with chairs all around it, lit sparsely. There were already two people inside. One of them, a woman who she assumed was the medium given her flamboyant hat and her place at the head of the table, was speaking to a tall man who was scribbling furiously into a small notebook. 

Why had she let Missy drag her across town for this? 

Melissa had been so excited after receiving the invitation to this seance from a friend of an acquaintance. Madame Reed was supposed to be one of the best mediums in the D.C. area, although Dana wasn’t exactly sure what _best_ really meant. After all, the claims that she had heard about these mediums were improbable at best and ridiculous at worst. She would never have chosen to spend a weeknight-a night she was supposed to be grading papers-at a seance, but when Missy’s date had cancelled on her, Dana had found herself unable to say no to her sister’s pleas for company.

_Look on the bright side,_ she thought to herself, still watching the man pace around the other room and peer under the table while taking notes, _this ought to be more entertaining than marking essays._

The other spectators began to file into the dining room and Dana trailed behind them. The table took up most of the space, and between the cramped feeling of the room and the poor lighting, she wasn’t sure any spirits would want to visit this place even if they did exist. She settled into a chair next to Missy and glanced around furtively at the other people at the table, who were looking at the medium with enraptured expressions.

The voices of the others began to quiet down and Dana sighed to herself, hoping that this wouldn’t take too long.

This had to be Mulder’s fiftieth seance.

_Come on, Spooky,_ his editor had said to him, _This is right up your alley. This medium is supposed to be very exclusive about who she lets into her seances and we’ve got an invitation for one reporter. They say she’s the real thing, you know._

His editor hadn’t sounded genuine, but who was Mulder to turn down a chance to witness actual communication with departed souls? And after all, no two seances were the same. This one definitely started out like all the others, though. Dimmed lights, hushed introductions and explanations from the medium-who admittedly did seem to know what she was doing- and the placing of hands on the table.

The seance had an eventful start, as Madame Reed asked the spirits surrounding them to lift and lower the table. To the amazement of everyone in the room, the table did indeed lift, pulling their hands a few inches upward with it.

Well, this feat amazed _nearly_ everyone.

Mulder caught the eye of a woman across the table. Her hands were dutifully placed on the surface in front of her like everyone else, but she was not gawking or exclaiming at the events unfolding. The woman next to her was grinning from ear to ear, eyes wide, whispering occasionally in her ear. She nodded slowly, but didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic as everyone else.

Perhaps she was scared? That was known to happen during such active sessions. Mulder had seen men and women end up on the floor, out cold from shock or terror. He certainly didn’t want to see it happen tonight.

However, Mulder didn’t have to wait long for his theory to be proven wrong. While the medium was reaching out to her spirit guide, seeking the souls of departed family members of some of the guests, she threw back her head and shouted dramatically. Instead of jumping like everyone else at the table (himself included), the woman across from him _rolled her eyes_.

He certainly had never seen a reaction like _that_ before.

From that moment, his attention was split between the woman sitting across from him and the events of the seance. Mulder really did try to pay attention to what was going on, since he knew that his article about this night would enthrall his readers, but he was drawn to the strange reactions of the woman. From the expressions on her face alone, she seemed not to believe anything that she was witnessing with her own eyes. How could she deny such tangible evidence of a spiritual presence amongst them? Mulder had attended enough seances to recognize out-and-out tricks, and this medium seemed genuine enough. He couldn’t help but feel a prickle on the back of his neck as her spirit guide spoke through her. Was the room a few degrees cooler as well?

His observation came to a head when Madame Reed began to demonstrate her ability to summon ectoplasm out of the ether. Mulder knew his attention should be on the medium as she pulled a milky white and impossibly long substance from her mouth, but the reactions of the skeptic across from him were simply too interesting. As other guests at the table gasped in disgust and shock, she remained still, a raised eyebrow arching so high that it nearly disappeared into her hairline. She leaned back slightly, appraising the situation with judgement written across her face.

As he watched her, Mulder found his eyes traveling down to her lips, then to her soft jawline and the curl of her short hair around her ears. In the dim light, it was hard to tell what color her hair was, but he had the strange urge to run his fingers through it, tuck it around the curve of her ear-

Oh.

The skeptic was looking at him. She was looking at him looking at her. Mulder smiled sheepishly and found himself on the receiving end of a bemused look. He turned his attention back to Madame Reed, refusing to let it wander for the rest of the session.

Afterward, as the guests slowly exited the dining room and chatted in the parlor, Mulder thanked Madame Reed and scribbled down a few key thoughts he wanted to include in his article. Once in the parlor, he looked around. Before he could convince himself to go home and begin writing, he saw the skeptic that had distracted him. She was standing alone in the corner, glancing impatiently at the grandfather clock next to her.

Embarrassment over being caught staring at her and curiosity over what she was thinking warred in his mind. The latter eventually won and he found himself walking over to her.

“That was a lively session, wasn’t it?” He said by way of introduction. His words seemed to snap her out of some train of thought and she jumped a little before smirking.

“That’s certainly one way of describing it.” She said.

“Fox Mulder,” he held out his hand. “Amateur psychical researcher and reporter for the Alexandria Gazette. Which explains this.” He smiled and held up his notebook.

The woman raised her eyebrow again. If she made a habit of it, she would have one lopsided wrinkle on her forehead in about thirty years. “Dana Scully.” She shook his hand, her grasp warm and firm.

“How would you describe what we just witnessed then, Miss Scully?” He asked, getting to the crux of the matter.

She considered his question. “A decent show, but not the best acting I’ve ever seen.”

“It seems like she does alright for herself though, wouldn’t you agree?” He gestured to the group of people who remained, retelling the events of the seance amongst themselves with gusto. She shrugged in response.

They settled into an awkward silence for a few moments. “What are you thinking about, Miss Scully?” he asked. She turned to him, her eyes meeting his.

“You know,” she began slowly, “one can purchase devices that lift tables for you during these types of things. They can even be delivered right to your front door.”

“I didn’t see a table-lifting apparatus when I was looking around beforehand.” He challenged her.

Scully crossed her arms, looking up at him. “It was dark, she could have been hiding it, or she could have brought it into the room while we were all finding our places.”

Mulder shrugged. “That’s possible. What about the knocking on the walls?”

She gave him a withering look. “You did a thorough search of all of the rooms when you arrived, did you?”

Mulder sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He could spend all night debating each little detail of the seance with Miss Scully (and part of him wanted to), but the miniscule details weren’t the reason he was talking to her, it was her own mysterious ideas that had pulled him toward her corner of the room.

Mulder eyed the gold chain around her neck, the cross sitting delicately atop her chest. “How do you make sense of it to yourself, then? The belief in an existence after death but the disbelief that we might be able to communicate with those on the other side and receive communications in return?”

She smiled a little, glancing back at the dining room and lowering her voice slightly. “The last time I checked, there is nothing in the Bible about tables lifting off of floors on command or mediums vomiting ectoplasm. You don’t really think she managed to pull some ghostly essence out of her stomach, do you?”

Mulder chuckled. “Alright, I have to admit that she was laying it on a little thick during that part of the session. But you really didn’t feel anything when the boy’s dead mother was speaking to him through her? A presence in the room?” His eyes trailed over her face, partially searching for some recognition or agreement with his sentiment and partially admiring the way a faint blush rose to her cheeks.

“I think people felt what they wanted to feel in there, Mr. Mulder.”

“And what did you feel in there?” His gaze flickered for a brief moment to her lips, watched as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. The pink of her tongue jutted out for just a moment to wet her lips and he felt something nearly supernatural stir in himself.

“Honestly? I felt like I wasted an evening watching a group of gullible people let themselves be tricked when I could have spent it in more productive ways.” She said harshly, before adding, “It was entertaining in its own way, though.”

“Why _did_ you come then?” This was what confused him most, besides her skepticism. Why would a nonbeliever willingly sit through a seance?

Miss Scully glanced at the others fondly. “I’m accompanying my sister, that’s all. She’s in your camp, regarding spiritualism.”

He nodded slowly, although he could feel himself getting slightly frustrated with her. By the look on her face, she was feeling the same way about him. Before he could stop himself, Mulder asked, “Why are you so quick to dismiss things that you’ve witnessed with your own two eyes?”

She countered almost immediately. “Why are you so ready to believe things that you can’t explain? And could easily be hoaxes?” They were standing less than a foot apart now, he was looking down at her and she was craning her neck to look up at him. “I prefer things that have rational explanations, not guesswork reliant on the honesty of strangers, thank you very much.” She seemed to realize how close they suddenly were, nearly touching, and stepped back swiftly.

“You know, I recently interviewed a fellow a few towns over who has been researching the soul, life after death and the like. He had quite the arrangement in his laboratory.”

“Oh?” There was a glimmer in her eyes. Curiosity, perhaps? It was hard to tell. Scully was guarded for sure, and he was certain that his own excitement about what they had just witnessed wasn’t helping.

Mulder nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes. You see, this man believes that he has found a method of weighing the soul, of quantifying the essence of humanity that isn’t held within our flesh and bones. It was all very scientific, you’d probably enjoy it a great deal, Miss Scully.”

She pondered his words for a moment, biting her bottom lip again. “How is he conducting these experiments? If he is, as you claim, removing the soul from the body, he'd have to be working with the dying, wouldn’t he?”

Mulder tugged at his collar awkwardly. “Well...yes.” His old friend the eyebrow arch reappeared on her face. She didn’t look disgusted, just confused. “But don’t think him completely unethical. His subjects are already on their deathbeds, he’s not rushing them by any means.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.” A small smile appeared on her face. “Has he actually been able to weigh a soul, then?”

“Actually, I’m planning on visiting him again for a follow-up interview. He’s promised to show me his experiment in action. Perhaps you’d like to accompany me tomorrow and we can continue this debate then?”

There was a long pause as she looked at him, considering his offer. Then she smiled. “You really believe in this stuff, don’t know?”

He smiled back, learning in close to her and looking into the coolness of her blue eyes. “Yes, yes I do,” he extended his hand and challenged her. “How would you like to prove me wrong?”

Her face lit up as she grabbed his hand. “Prepare to eat your words, Mr. Mulder.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments are appreciated. Feel free to come talk to me at midwest-cryptid on tumblr.
> 
> My main source for the paranormal details in this fic was "Spook" by Mary Roach, which I cannot recommend enough. The weighing of the soul thing is real, by the way, although it took place about 20 years earlier in real life.


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